Area-wide parking sticker from March 2022

Uniform times, uniform rules and uniform costs: The new area-wide parking sticker is intended to remove the “fleckerl carpet”, as Sima calls it. The short-term parking zones in all districts have uniform periods of validity, from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. for a maximum of two hours. The parking sticker, which is an exemption for these short-term parking zones, will be introduced across the entire city.

There are currently 19 districts, most of which have a short-term parking zone. The parking sticker is newly introduced in Hietzing, Floridsdorf, the Donaustadt and Liesing. In Simmering it will be extended to the entire district. As before, the parking sticker is only valid for each district after the expansion. The regulation was presented by City Councilor Sima, NEOS club chairwoman Bettina Emmerling and the SPÖ district heads from Donaustadt, Floridsdorf, Liesing and Simmering.

Only a few exceptions

The sticker is valid throughout the city with a few exceptions in uninhabited forest and industrial areas. In Floridsdorf, for example, the Bisamberg will not be included. In Liesing, part of the business or industrial area is not included. Another exception was always the area around the town hall. A special regulation applies here for the evenings and on weekends. This will also be history from March next year. Instead, they will rely on designated neighboring parking spaces, which should also apply on Saturdays and Sundays.

Income flows into “public transport” expansion

“It creates more space for people in the districts, less time spent looking for a parking space and a better quality of life through green spaces and trees, because we simply don’t need as much space for parked cars,” said Sima. The sticker is valid throughout the city with a few exceptions in uninhabited forest and industrial areas.

The fact that the price of the parking sticker is now also being standardized has consequences, at least for residents in the outer districts. Because until now they only had to pay 7.50 euros per month for the badge. In the inner-city areas it already costs ten euros.

Parking stickers purchased before March 2022 will continue to be valid until the regular end of the permit period and will also be recognized for the new validity periods and zones. “The income from the parking sticker will flow directly into the expansion of public transport,” said Sima.

“No attack on commuters”

According to Sima, around 200,000 commuters come to Vienna by car every day. The expansion of the short-term parking zone “is not a bad attack on our part”. Because with the introduction of the comprehensive parking sticker in Simmering, there would otherwise have been “a domino effect” on the other districts, said Sima.

For NEOS club chairwoman Emmerling, this step is a milestone for climate protection: “The expansion of the parking sticker to all districts is an important step for traffic calming and climate protection in our city.”

The parking sticker area will double next year, was calculated today. It is the largest expansion in the history of parking space management in Vienna. Incidentally, these have been around since 1993. Wherever the short-term parking zone for non-residents was introduced, the volume of traffic has generally decreased, said Sima. In the west alone, after the introduction of the badge, around 8,000 fewer journeys per working day were recorded.

Kobald: “If that would be the remaining parking space for all of Vienna”

The district of Hietzing is also going along, but not very enthusiastic. District chief Silke Kobald (ÖVP) was also not invited to the presentation, as she said to “Vienna today”. Since the neighboring district of Liesing would make a corresponding decision, the decision for their district would to a certain extent be enforced. “We cannot see the district plunge into chaos, because then we would be the remaining parking space in all of Vienna without a parking sticker. And so we will have to agree with a bitter heart, ”said Kobald.

Among other things, she criticized the fact that the maximum parking time will only be two hours – and that the monthly fee for residents of the outskirts will be increased. “I don’t see why we suddenly have to pay something for a previously existing service, namely parking spaces, without receiving any compensation,” said Kobald. It called for an exception for “the Schönbrunn area” – analogous to the area around the town hall.

Greens: expansion of “better than nothing”

ÖVP councilor Manfred Juraczka spoke of the “worst imaginable way”. The existing model was unimaginatively extended to all of Vienna. That is nothing more than a “rip off”. What would be necessary, however, would be parking space management with steering effects that could be achieved, for example, through digital solutions.

For the Greens, the extension is “better than nothing”. However, smaller zones would be necessary, especially in the urban districts, said the mobility spokesperson Kilian Stark and Heidisequence: “The update of the parking sticker from SPÖ and NEOS presented today is a thin compromise.” The concept is no longer up to date.

Vienna’s FPÖ boss Dominik Nepp found that the SPÖ and NEOS could not go fast enough to “clear the pockets” of the Viennese. The blue traffic spokesman Toni Mahdalik stated that at least 25,000 new Park & ​​Ride parking spaces are needed in Vienna in order to get the commuter problem under control. Here the city looked the other way for years.

VCÖ: tariff is too low

The Austrian Transport Club (VCÖ) spoke of a “long overdue step”. However, the tariff of ten euros per month is too low, according to a press release. A parking permit costs almost five times as much in Amsterdam and seven times as much in Stockholm, it was emphasized. In addition, the zones in the large districts would have to be smaller, otherwise there would be additional car traffic within the district, warned the VCÖ.

Lower Austria not pleased

In Lower Austria, from where many people commute to work in Vienna, they were not happy about the plans to expand. Since the announcement that the parking sticker would be extended to all of Vienna, the municipalities on the city limits have been looking for solutions so that the parking problem does not shift there – more on this in Parkpickerl: Wiener Umland is looking for solutions.

Sima announced the construction of cross-state public transport. A number of projects are currently being examined. “It is clear that public transport beyond the city limits requires co-financing from the federal government and the federal states. Commuters need an attractive offer and the Viennese need relief, ”says Sima.

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